Some of you guys may have met me on one TPR trip or another and may already know some of the stories I want to share with you all. For the rest of you: Hi, I’m Tom, I life in Germany and I thought it would be fun to give you guys an insight of how foreign people experience American theme parks und Floridian theme parks in particular. As you will have noticed, I’m no “native writer”, so please pardon my bad English.
Some of you may have visited some European or even German theme parks in the latest past and found them quite appealing with lots of great and unique attractions. This has not always been the case. When I was a kid, there was no Disneyland Paris or Warner Bros Movie World, no Expedition GeForce or Silver Star. I basically grew up with Phantasialand and fun fairs, where I loved to ride “ghost train” style attractions. Fun fact: a lot of German people have no idea what a “dark ride” is, so they refer to them as “ghost trains” (even the press does). Pirates of the Caribbean? A ghost train. Great Movie Ride? A ghost train with 22 minutes ride time (most people will completely freak out on that one). When I was younger there were only two TV stations (conveniently named “1st” and “2nd”) and there has been a show called “Bilder aus Amerika” (Pictures from America). One episode was about Walt Disney World in Florida. The reporter Dieter Kronzucker told us, that this park was so huge, it had his own radio station so people could find a parking spot. There was also a ride that went under water with submarines. Can you imagine that?
Unfortunately intercontinental flights were super expensive those days, so it took me 31 years to set my foot on American soil for the first time. And although my first visit to the Magic Kingdom was a complete disaster that - “thanks” to a tropical storm - lasted just about 3 hours, I kept coming back for more than 25 times since then. Sometimes with a couple of friends, sometimes with my wife and one time with 40 German theme park enthusiasts. But that’s another story.
